


Fate or Fatality

by asgardianthot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes reads Greek tragedies, Heavy Angst, LOTS of mentions of classical plays, M/M, Post-Endgame, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson is a Gift, that's it nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 11:11:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21445276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asgardianthot/pseuds/asgardianthot
Summary: After Steve left in 2023, Bucky has too many thoughts haunting him and gets lost in reading Greek myths and plays. He hopes for the tragedies to give his feelings some sort of meaning, maybe even find himself a purpose, beyond the parallels between the literary characters and his and Steve’s history.In simpler words: A reflection on Steve and Bucky through Greek tragedy.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 14





	Fate or Fatality

**Author's Note:**

> This is sad and probably the most extra thing I’ve ever done. And it mentions a bunch of classical tragedies but you don’t have to know them to understand the fic (they’re briefly explained most of the times)

"It's gonna be okay, Buck."

That's what you said, Steve; a condescending tone sneaking through your vocal chords.

I know you didn't mean to sound pitiful because I know you don't mean to feel pity. You just can't help it.

The damsel in distress. I am no longer in danger, therefore your hero part is over. Roll the credits, give me a hug, step into that time machine. I'll be okay. According to you, _it's gonna be okay_.

How do you know? How did you, how could you possibly know?

-

"You alive then?" Sam’s voice snapped me back into reality.

I looked around Sam’s car as if I had no clue of what I was doing there, like a movie character who’s been drugged and woke up to a new set. I remembered he was on his way to actually work, something I couldn’t say for myself. There was much to be done ever since everyone came back, and I had yet to give my part of sharing. Unfortunately, I did not see that happening anytime soon.

I turned my head to him, "Huh?"

"You're not actually listening to what I'm saying." He said, his eyes focused on the road ahead.

The inflection on his voice never changed, which led me to believe he wasn’t truly offended. Still, I shifted in my seat out of minimal respect, instead of continuing to sink in it like I was falling asleep. I wasn’t.

"Sorry." I mumbled.

I saw a small grin take over his features. It wasn’t one of sadness, or at least not entirely: there was a bit of disappointment to it. After more minutes of silence, in which I didn’t allow my mind to drift off by reading every word to every sign on the street, he spoke again.

"Barnes." He caught my attention.

"Yes." I was quick to reply so he would know I was focused.

He stole a quick glance at me, then darted back to the wheel and the path ahead of us.

"You sure you don't wanna take some time off?" he eventually let out.

I’d lie if I said I didn’t think about it for way too much. Perhaps I did. I wasn’t being of any help. However, no matter how hard I wanted, nothing came out of my mouth, and that was enough of an answer for Sam.

-

There was a knock on my door. I was staying at the compound and hadn’t even bothered to get a sad little room fixed for myself. Just my mattress, chair, and overall necessities. I was too busy to decorate. Busy obsessing over books to get my head out of what was really happening.

"Barnes?” I recognized Wanda’s voice behind the structure, “Are you still reading that book?"

I looked down to the floor and took in the pile of papers and hard covers resting there, and somehow they seemed like my hostages. There were at least five books I had to return to the library as soon as possible. The last time she had caught me reading, I was still on a re-telling of the myth of Persephone. That was a few thousands of pages ago.

-

Walking around and examining the same old same five feet of content, I felt like I had been trapped just as I trapped my books. The local library offered a variety of topics and genres that were unmatched, yet I couldn’t stray from the same literary section. Repetitive and obsessed would be a good way of describing me right now. I ran my flesh fingers through the spines of the hard covers, pretending to absorb something new, maybe receive that one true call, a magic feeling that could lead me to the one story which would give me all the answers.

It appeared no matter how many ancient tales I swallowed, none of them could explain the knot in my stomach when I went to sleep. None could tame the hole inside. Perhaps, if I searched elsewhere –any other category, psychology, modern war, the History of Mankind– I could find those answers. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t step a foot outside the _Greek tragedies_ section. There was something to those plays and stories that felt oddly close to me. So I figured they would provide me an explanation –_a revelation_.

First it was The Odyssey. Then Antigone, and before I knew it, I couldn’t stop. My hunger for ancient Greek mythology, and the gods, and the suffering of simple men and women, and heroes and _idiots_ was of no end.

So yes, I've been reading a lot. Checking out those fancy old arts you used to like. Of course these books are pristine, not second-hand, third-hand, fourth-hand bought like yours. These pages fold, they're not beige leaves that rip apart easily to the point where they need you to re-do them with that nasty glue from the local shop. You thought you'd make them look brand as new, and credit to your talent for being able to fix those old, dusty contraptions.

Sometimes I forget how awfully talented you were. It baffles me, you moron; you were such a good artist before they put your head in the blender. Your excess of novelty surpassed your actual smarts... the army was for us good-for-nothing fat-heads, not for people like you with real things to offer to this world. I remember you called me that ridiculous insult when we were kids. I made fun of you for something and you really took it the wrong way, being obliviously eight at the time, and you said I should go play with the _fat-heads_ where I belonged, since I clearly lacked some brains in my skull. You were pissed.

Anyways, I’ve noticed all of these tragedies have one thing in common: the protagonists make mistakes _(which one did I commit?)_ Be it an action or a naïve belief, their humanity gets in the way of their happiness, and that is something everyone can relate to. Sometimes, though, I think _you_ can’t. I keep reading them, hoping I’ll one day understand why that is. What was so godly about you.

I've been gulping down these classical books like they're my last meal. Every new tragedy, I devour with urgency. I feel like a kid, reading story after story past his bedtime, the trespassing making it all the more thrilling, equipped with a flashlight under my sheets. I feel like you. You in short brown pants, you in filthy golden locks, you coughing into your drawings because the weather was just so hard on your lungs. I feel like Stevie.

When I say _classical_, I mean the overtly lame academic ones. Aristotle. Plato, _The Banquet_. That one I didn't like. The downfall of Persephone. All Greek legends, poor heroic souls beaten down by the great Gods, by fortune-tellers delivering a blood-spilled message.

Sisyphus has the whole _existential dread_ thing soaked in. Forced by the authors of Destiny to push a big rock up a hill, and hilariously so, the second he reaches the finish line, gravity pulls the stone back down and he starts all over again. Every day, it’s just pushing and pulling through life and the circle repeats itself. That’s what I’m supposed to take away from the tale, but all I’m getting from poor Sisyphus is that purposes are a meaningless ways of distracting us from the cruel reality: we’re stuck. More on the subject of destiny:

The myth of the three sisters. Medea. The Iliad. _Fate_. _Destiny_. Fate. Fate. Fate.

Over my tenth or eleventh read, I noticed another pattern: Irony. When Cronos is told that one of his sons would kill him, he went mad and ate his own children, but since one of them, Zeus, was kept away, he grew up to execute the bastard. His desperate attempt to escape his destiny led him exactly to the prophecy fulfilling. Down in Thebes, and impossibly similar to Cronos, Laius is warned: your firstborn shall “kill his father and marry his mother!” Sent away to die –unsuccessfully– the son Oedipus travels a full curve around the prophecy, only to end right where he was supposed to be. _Fulfilled_.

What’s obscure and not at all comedic, is that exactly; _irony_ just means there's no way out. You get two paths to choose from: destiny or death. Fate or fatality. The trick is the following: both paths are the exact same story.

_Fate or fatality_. It feels unnaturally familiar. It's present, like a lingering proximity.

I remember when you started reading big words like that. God, you were always so much smarter than me and somehow you managed to be an absolute moron. You'd blurt them out randomly, back when we were young enough to attend classes. The teachers loved you when you sat quietly and raised your hand to babble, unaware of the fact you were effortlessly quoting the great authors. Then you'd come back after recess all covered in dirt and lugging ripped pants and they would scold you for ages.

How did you manage to be both? Both the perfect poster boy and the reckless idiot. Both the tiny smart mouth and America's muscly savior. Both mine and someone else's. I shared you with my country and everyone else who loved you, in hopes that maybe you could love me as I did you, yet someone was better, more present, more outspoken. Not only did she have the words but she said them, didn't she? With her fancy accent and open, honest heart. I didn't have those. Elegance nor courage. I was a chicken, all my life. I trembled my bones out the night I got drafted. I cried for a whole five breathless seconds after that date with those girls in Stark Expo. I didn't catch a second of sleep and nodded off the entire trip to the camp. My hands were steady enough to shoot my riffle but I got nasty, swollen gashes on the inside of my cheeks for biting too hard into them. I did my best, Steve, I promise, I simply wasn't _all that_, and I honest to God don't think I've ever been.

But you? You were gold. The purest of them all.

That was my Steve. That's the man that left me standing there, knowing he'd never come back to me, only to show up in a brand new skin suit. That man on the bench? That ain't you. I have no idea who you are today, who you were during that parallel lifetime. I didn't know you. That whole world you lived without me... that ain't the one who was mine and everyone else's, it's just some stranger who knows my name. And that thought burns my lungs.

-

_"Sam."_

The funeral wasn’t looking like one, no rain, no clouds, but instead green prosperity topped with a clear sky. That’s how you left: the illusion of a bright, promising future.

I felt my heart stop, skip a few beats, and yet I knew he needed to see you. I guided him to you, I gave him the red light. _You go, I don’t need to_. Had he only known that I actually _couldn’t_.

Sam looked happy. Nostalgic for someone he had lost not two seconds ago, somehow, but glad. For you. I saw you hand him your shield.

It's his, and that's where it belongs. He'll do good. He's stubborn and convinced of dumb stuff like the ones you rambled on about since we were born. He will do the right thing and he will hold that shield with respect like you did. Don't doubt for a second that he'll be a better and less impulsive version of you, Captain.

But he could never be you. No one can.

My feet remained still. I felt Sam’s warm gaze on me, that cheeky question mark written all over his face. _You knew._ I still don’t know if I wish I didn’t. Because as much as I tried to move my legs, get closer, make myself seen and acknowledged, I was frozen in spot.

I couldn't. I couldn't face you. You were right there, but it wasn't you. It was some old, twisted version of a Steve that lived an entire life where he didn't even know me. That's not my Steve. At least not from my side of events, which relies on the one constant that is _us._

-

"You don't need to ask permission, Steve.” I reassured you in that stuffy room before you left, “I've never stopped you before."

It felt wrong, being there. The matrimonial bedroom at a funeral. Tony’s room. But you said we needed the privacy, and when your mouth began saying the words ‘time travel’ and ‘go back’ I stopped listening. I knew what the mute image of your moving lips was informing me: you could stay there. You could go fetch that life we always thought you’d have. Well, not always. Before you became Captain America, we dreamed about being eternal bachelors and living off adventures and nickels. Then I got drafted.

You allowed a smile to take over your features, "I should have listened a few times, in retrospective.” You admitted, nodding in amusement, “Would've gotten me out of a lot of trouble."

I shrugged. You looked so different. Last time I saw you, you were four years younger.

"Well, it wouldn't be you if there weren't any trouble." I responded with that same nonchalant tone, false as all hell.

"_Still_.” Your smile faded a little, but you continued glistening with that Steve Rogers trademark glow, “A few less bruises woulda been nice."

The next words left my mouth without me even processing them. I promise, Steve, I didn’t mean to bring it up.

"Told you not to enlist."

It rolled off my tongue as if it were one more light-hearted snappy comeback, as if it was an easy joke. But the silence that followed knew it wasn’t like that, just like ourselves. Your glow fled, leaving a big cloud of nothingness between us, with far too much to consider in that sentence alone. Way too many conversations we had left unfinished in the last century, too many years to process.

You had to step outside.

Which was why in the wink of an eye, your usual brightness returned to your skin, your half grin that oozed comfort, and even happiness.

"Everything's settled.” You said like a mantra, trying to remind me that everything _is gonna be okay, Buck_, but it feels like you’re justifying your decision, “One might even say, back to normal."

"Nothing's normal." I smirked, looking around the room and into the window, where sunlight creeped its way inside through a cream-colored curtain; outside of that room, nothing was what I would define as normal, "I guess it's... better than worse." I shrugged again, doing an effort to offer you a smile.

Your face lit up. You know that’s my lighthouse. You seemed positive and so very hopeful.

-

I sat down on the carpet floor and grabbed the pen I had been keeping behind my ear, one I had asked from Sam when all the ones I found and bought ran out of ink or dried out before they could fulfill their duty. The poor items’ whole life had been to serve my laments. I opened the black notebook, hard cover and slightly wrinkled pages, and opened it on my lap. Eventually, I thought to myself, my back would really start taking a toll on all the hunching down I was doing. For now, I cared more about the words I wrote than about my tensed muscles.

I stole a glance at the book laying on my mattress; a collection of mythologies. Most of them I had already learned about, but my brain believed I would attain some kind of nirvana if I just continued to overanalyze every story again and again.

Thankfully, I grew tired of it. As soon as I finished the last page, I realized I had every information I could ever hope for. I knew what I had read and what lessons had kicked their way into my skull, but I had been afraid to admit to them before. So I held the pen between my fingers and wrote down my realizations.

There is a fairly beautiful story in that dialogue The Banquet, the one I didn't enjoy: a myth that depicts humans as halves; see, we were all four-legged, four-armed and two-headed creatures before Zeus cut us into individuals, and since then, everyone spends their lifetime searching for their designated one. Soulmates. Them who we feel unfinished without. Just as Plyades tells Orestes he’d care for him through his madness, no matter what. Just as he asked the man “_what is life to me without your companionship?_” The beauty of such an idea, of people finding that perfect other half was a dim light in the dark ocean of my readings. Because, yes, some tales are hopeful and warm.

But some... some are horrid.

The piercing shriek of Clytemnestra as she's being slaughtered by the hand of her own son, as punishment for violently murdering the father of the family. All those killings, expected and demanded by the Gods. Revenge is a thirst they require quenched. The smell of Prometheus' liver and loins burning out in the open while he's ripped apart by an eagle's beak. His punishment for challenging the Gods.

So not only have I learned that tragedy is inevitable, and the Gods are funny little evil bastards, but they are also ruthless, sadistic, and senseless. They crave death and torture and suffering and they call it _the human condition_, as if we're expected to believe _that's just it_; they're just delivering a sentence that must be, as humans aren't humans if not in pain.

_I call bullshit_. If we have no choice, then it is them who do, and that would imply they mess with us by their own will. They want to hurt and play us like puppets and they enjoy it, they get off of making us dance around in blood... and there is nothing _I_ can do about it. But at least it has led me to understand, my fate might be just cruel. Just an illogical and satirical set of games, with no way to escape a sour end. That's my story.

A sour ending.

One tiny problem, though_. I'm still here_. Every book ending in despair leads you to believe that is what the poor character's life has become; an endless ending full of sadness, and as the reader we get to close the book and forget all about them, but I am here.

You're gone. Somewhere between 1946 and forever. And I'm here, mouth dry but plenty of words I never got to tell you. So I figured why not put a pen to good use and get them out of my system.

It’s useless to write a letter, for you are not here to receive it; not _my_ you, at least. I just address my words to you so they don’t linger in my brain and eat me alive. I let them rot the paper for all eternity instead of my mind.

I stretched for a second, needing a break from spewing my heart and soul and memory into the blank pages. The notebook would run out of space one day, and that terrified me. Then I scratched the back of my head and rubbed my eyes before I resumed my redaction:

_So that's it_. You're utterly and unarguably gone. For good this time, which is a first. I am not. I suppose I should start over. However it feels like there is no version of my tale in which you’re not lurking and pressing and changing my world (“What is life to me without your companionship?”) I don’t think that I can rewrite my destiny, because in some way, I believe we are a Greek tragedy, written a millennium ago and attached to my soul like a curse. Allow me to elaborate:

Our hands don’t touch. They never do. We broke promises, or rather tore them apart with _naivety_, which tastes too much like _hope_. That’s what fooled us; that electricity between our fingers when reaching out for each other, when we reached into the next century, when you couldn’t catch me. That damn electricity is called longing. And it felt good, you know how illusions can make you believe in magic when you _want_ to ignore the magician’s secret.

There was a wicked upper hand, a magician that trusted us to believe in our own free will. To believe it was just you and I and our stubborn heads, safely kept under helmets before launching ourselves into a war we were bound to lose. We were always going to fall to our deaths, always _drawn to ice_. I knew that, remember? I told you I’d follow that kid from Brooklyn into the gates of hell, and I took that leap for you. And no, I don’t just mean launching ourselves at Nazis, for we lost something else too, and it was that touch. That imminent but forever absent touch. Every single time.

Nevertheless, I would throw myself back into any battle you’d ask me to. I would have fought moral inquisitors, all five winter soldiers, entire armies with just _one word_ from you. There was no evil I couldn’t wipe off your swollen face, _Stevie_, no bruise I couldn’t kiss.

But now I’ve thrown myself into a battle where you are not leading, and that is one enemy I can’t defeat: silence. Not loving you –willingly, at worst. To be voluntarily detached from you sounds like such an oxymoron, I’m pretty sure I’m not right in the head after all, having pulled that one on myself. Perhaps just one word from you would have stretched the electricity enough to close our gap. Perhaps you never truly expected it to. I cried myself to suffocation, overrun by panic, when I considered the possibility of you waiting for me to stop you, so I just don’t consider it anymore.

Because how could I ask you to stay? I’m not home, I’m not happiness, I’m not comfort; all three things you deserve. I am, at best, a cup of mediocre coffee gone cold. I can’t offer you perfumed sheets and cozy mornings after a night of jazz. The paradox is, I feel sick to my stomach when I wish you were still bony limbs on a kitchen counter –I patch you up while you mumble incoherently about them darn bullies, and you _actually need_ me to be there.

Then again, what if we went back? Would we have done anything differently? Would our hands meet the first, or second, or third or fourth time you lost me? I’ve come to terms with the conclusion that there is no scenario in which we are victorious. Not in this life, at least, and we’ve lived a few. In all of them, we crossed paths. I walked alongside you and I wanted you and I died for you.

Revive Cronos, Laius, bring Clytemnestra back from the dead, warn Prometheus not to steal the God’s fire, tell Sisyphus the rock is just gonna fall over every single day… They’d do it all over again. Face their last pages, rewrite the whole book, word by word. There are lines you simply can’t obviate. _‘with you ‘til the end of the line’ _is a fairly theatrical one, for example. None of us can quite remember who said it first, but I know, in our next life, it’ll show up again.

We will always lack as much beginning as end. We’re a sick turn of God’s hand, you and I; _played by History, tricked by Fate._ Doomed to graze but never touch, never caress.

I’ve had plenty to say but no words when met by your icy blue eyes. You know, Oedipus took off his eyes when he faced his destiny, and only then did he see the truth. That guy gets it. All tragedies documented in literature told me the only way to find the finish line to the frenzy was to accept the plan in which I am but a piece.

I believe you were the great hero of the play, and I guess I should be grateful over having been of use.

I really do hope your departure gives me catharsis, for that is the only thing I can _claim_ for myself now.

The loudest sigh left my mouth as I put the pen down. Something inside me didn’t even believe I had just wrote all of that. I thought about tearing the last pages apart, make them disappear, but I simply shut the notebook closed and slid it under my mattress for sake keeping.

Afterwards, I went into the common kitchen to get myself a well-deserved glass of water. The book of mythologies was in my hand the whole time, since I feared I would lose it or knock something over it and stain it, and my only duty was to return it to the library. Maybe I would get another book, just in case.

When I was done quenching my thirst, I found the keys I left by the fridge and grabbed them.

“Heading out?” a voice made me jump.

I looked over to see it was Sam, who had noticed the clink of keys against my metal arm, and was putting on a jacket over his shoulders. I nodded my head.

“I can drop you off at the library.” He showed me the car keys hanging from his fingers.

I suddenly found myself craving the isolation I had held myself for the past month, “No, it’s okay, I’m not…” I trailed off before I remember I was _literally_ holding a book.

“That’s the only place you go.” He mocked me, tilting his head, “Come on, it’s right on my way.”

I took a deep breath, “Sure, thanks.”

-

“How’s the reading going?”

That was the first question to break the silence in the car. Sam seemed interested in my obsession, even though he knew it wasn’t healthy for me. He had told me before, until he understood I wouldn’t listen to him. Now he just asked, and hoped I would give a proper answer that showed I was a sentient, living human being, instead of just a bookworm zombie.

“Good.” I said, trying not to sound cold.

He nodded, “I’m not much of an intellectual, but there are some pretty good mystery novels I could recommend.”

I could tell Sam was waiting for me to ask 'which ones?' in order to have an actual interaction, but I didn’t. I took a deep breath, and he stared at me long enough for me to feel guilty over not replying. Eventually, he gave up as if he had remembered that one specific detail.

“Right, you only read…” He shot a glance at my choice of reading, “old stories. _Tragedies_, right?” he raised his eyebrows, “Ever tried something with a happy ending?”

Fortunately, I felt comfortable enough to explain something I hadn’t before, only because nobody had asked the right question. I lost my sight outside my window, almost turning around from Sam and sighed.

“I’m having a hard time believing in those.” I admitted.

The silence that that sentence brought was to be expected. I thought I would have preferred Sam to mock me and take it lightly, but that wasn’t the counselor war veteran. No, he had to talk sense into me, make me believe there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I waited for him to do so, to sternly give me a lecture on picking my chin up. Instead, his tone was soft and sympathetic.

“We’re heroes.” He stated in a low but warm voice, “At least, that’s what they call us. What they need us to be. It’s our job to save the city and stuff, and we need to stay positive for that. Can’t promise people a bright tomorrow if we don’t believe it ourselves.” He trailed off for a while, and I noticed he was thinking, processing an idea he probably had never spoke out loud, “Somehow… I feel like we make possible for everyone else to be happy. So I guess… eventually, we’ll get a happy ending too.”

The pep talk entered my head easier than any other. I wanted to trust his words, because they sounded like a proper answer and one the books hadn’t provided me. The tragedies had given me parallels, they had not only explained to me why Steve and I had been like that, but also told me my fate was dark and my future bound to darken. The only answers I had received were glum and unpromising, yet what Sam said so simply was hopeful.

A small smile made its way into my face. Only Samuel Wilson could convince me of something like that: a better future. A raising hill with a top to reach; all I had to do was drop the heavy rock instead of carrying it with me.

“Shit, I forgot to take a turn.” He said when he realized he had missed the way to the library, “I can still drop you off, though.”

As the opportunity stroke, I decided I would rather going to work with Sam.

“No, I’m good.” I reported.

“Are you sure?”

When he met my eyes, I nodded, a small peaceful grin plastered on my features.

“Yeah, I still got a few days to return this.” I shrugged while dropping the book to the back, letting him know I was joining him today.

The thought of him making me change my mind seemed to make him smirk, yet he tried to conceal it, “I thought you’d want a new one.” The man tested me through squinted eyes.

I didn’t need a new book.

I pursed my lips and then sat back, “Nah. ‘s just a bunch of old stories.”


End file.
